AJR (band)

The Metzger brothers initially began writing, producing and mixing their own material in the living room of their Chelsea apartment in Manhattan, New York, focusing on DIY indie pop music. They began performing around 2006, busking in Central Park and Washington Square Park. They began their musical talents when Jack played the harmonica, Ryan played the piano, and Adam played the bass. However, currently they play various different instruments. They began by performing covers,[6] they also released two 2010 albums called “Venture“ and “Born and Bred“, and a 2012 self-titled EP, which were later removed.

In November 2012, AJR's Ryan Metzger tweeted a link to a video of their song "I'm Ready" to about 80 celebrities, including Australian singer Sia Furler.[6] Furler told her manager about the song, and he contacted Steve Greenberg, former president of Columbia Records and current CEO and Founder of S-Curve Records.[7] He acts as their co-manager.[6] AJR's debut single, "I'm Ready", which features a sample of SpongeBob SquarePants repeatedly singing his catchphrase, "I'm ready", from the eponymous animated series' premiere episode, was commercially released on August 22, 2013.[8] The song was placed in regular rotation on Sirius XM Radio's Top 20 on 20 and Hits 1 stations,[7] and they performed the song on Good Day New York and VH1's Big Morning Buzz.[9] The official music video for "I'm Ready" premiered on VEVO on October 15, 2013.[6][10]

AJR released their debut EP, 6foot1 (later renamed I'm Ready after the band signed to Warner Music Group), on December 20, 2013. They were named Clear Channel's "Artist on the Rise" for the month of October 2013. By 2014, the band was already named IHeartRadio's Artist of the Month for Top 40 in January,[11] and a Myspace "One to Watch" in February,[12] while "I'm Ready" officially impacted pop radio in April. There are now over 31 million YouTube views for "I'm Ready", many thousands of singles sold each week, features in Billboard and the New York Post, while climbing the Top 40 chart. "I'm Ready" hit #1 on Next Big Sound's chart in May 2014. The band performed the song on Today on July 29, 2014. "I'm Ready" has been certified Platinum, in Canada and Platinum in Australia.

The band's second EP, Infinity, was released September 23, 2014. It contains 5 tracks, including the lead single "Infinity".[13] They released a lyric video for the single. A majority of the work for the video was done by AJR, including directing and producing.[14] The EP was released instead of their debut album, Living Room, which was pushed back to a release date of March 3, 2015. The band expressed that the delay in their debut album was because they wanted to add some of their newer music to the project.

The brothers released their third EP, titled What Everyone's Thinking, on September 16, 2016, which features the lead single "Weak". The lead single was written by the band in a day, within a few hours, without any idea of the future success the single would have.[15] "Weak" has been certified Platinum in the U.S., Canada, Norway, Netherlands and Belgium, and Gold in Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Australia. It has over 450 million streams on Spotify.

The band released its second studio album, The Click, on June 9, 2017, featuring the singles "Weak", "Drama" and "Sober Up", which features frontman Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, who co-wrote the track. This song reached number one on the Mediabase Alternative Singles chart in 2018. The band's 2018 tour in support of the album, The Click Tour, featured Hundred Handed, Grizfolk, Ocean Park Standoff, and MAX as openers.[16]

In 2017, AJR released "It's On Us," a single written in collaboration with the It's On Us campaign, which was launched by Barack Obama in 2014 to combat sexual assault in college campuses across the United States.[17]

An extended version of The Click was released on September 21, 2018. The Click (Deluxe) included new tracks such as "Role Models", "Normal" and "Burn The House Down", the latter which the band released in March, 2018 as a single and reached number two on the Mediabase Alternative Singles chart. Also included was "Pretender - Acoustic", an acoustic version of "Pretender", which was a collaboration between AJR, EDM artist Steve Aoki and American rapper Lil Yachty.

On January 30, 2019, AJR released "100 Bad Days", the first single for their then-unannounced album Neotheater.[18] A music video was released on March 8. The song was included on Taylor Swift's Apple Music playlist, "Playlist by ME!" in May, 2019. The lyrics, "maybe a hundred bad days made a hundred good stories, a hundred good stories make me interesting at parties," are used in Taylor's description of this playlist of songs she loves and appreciates. On March 5, the band teased the second single, "Birthday Party."[19] On March 11, the band announced their third studio album, Neotheater, which was to be released on April 26.[20] “100 Bad Days”, was performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on March 11.[21] On March 11 , the second single, "Birthday Party" was released.[22] The third single, "Dear Winter," was teased on April 1,[23] and released on April 5, with a music video being released later that same day.[24] The album debuted on April 26 at #1 on Billboard's Top Alternative Albums, #1 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums, and #8 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums. On October 25, the group released "Dear Winter 2.0," re-imagining the song by "changing the production and upping the emotion." [25]

On February 12, a new single "Bang!" was released, with a music video the next day.[26]